Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Tenshin, light meal at tea ceremony

On the second of Jan, I went to Inuyama with Hiro and our tea master to join a tea ceremony. Inuyama is our nearby city in Aichi prefecture. The tea ceremony is held at Meitetsu-Inuyama Hotel and Urakuen which is next to the hotel. At the tea ceremony, tenshin (light meal for tea ceremony) was served at the hotel and matcha was at a tea room in Urakuen. We went to the hotel first. The tenshin was served in a big hall with tables, not in a Japanese tatami room. Eventhough people were wearing nice outfit (Some of them were wearing kimono), the tenshin ceremony seemed casual. You were seated on a first-come-first served basis. Formal manners for tea ceremony were not required so much, so we just enjoyed the meal (^-^)

This is the tenshin served there. It’s New Year, so the dishes were osech-style. Osechi is Japanese special meal for New Year. Sacred sake was also served, which is in the red vessel on the near side.

Zoni was served in a bowl. Zoni is a soup with rice cakes and vegetables. It is also a popular meal for New Year. Zoni has different tastes and ingredients from region to region. Zoni isn’t my favorite meal but the zoni served here was pretty good. I loved the tasty flavor of the soup.

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I’m taking The Way of Tea lessons. I’d like to introduce what I learn in the lessons and what I think of casual Japanese tea in my blog. I hope you’ll find out what Japanese tea is like. Why don’t you give it a try?

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